Things to Look Forward To
by ncfan
Summary: Katara had never imagined that she might have more family. Set between "The Waterbending Master" and "The Siege of the North."


I own nothing.

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Katara had always thought of her family as this very small unit. There was her and Sokka. Then there was Gran-Gran. Then there was Dad and Mom (And once Mom died, the place that had once been filled by her sat empty and yawning as the Antarctic wilderness in winter). Bato counted, seeing as he was Dad's cousin and, in the way he behaved towards Katara and Sokka, he was practically their uncle.

Then, for the longest time, it was just her and Sokka and Gran-Gran. Katara wouldn't have called this arrangement a happy one, because Mom was dead and Dad and Bato could end up dead too at any time. Her family was shrinking, had shrunk, could still shrink if she wasn't careful and didn't take proper care of them. It wasn't a "happy" arrangement, and Katara couldn't even call it stable, but it was what she'd had to live with, and if she couldn't change it for the better, she could at least do everything in her power to keep her situation from getting any worse.

She had never thought she had had more family than the family that she knew. But then, Katara had never known that Gran-Gran had been born at the North Pole.

"I was just a few months old when Kanna left," Nissi said, bending a large bubble of water so that it fell into her teapot. "We had no idea where she had gone or if she was even still alive. Now, I hope you'll like this; I know tea isn't the drink of choice for the Water Tribe, but my husband brings this back with him whenever he returns from the Earth Kingdom, and I've always loved tea myself."

"I'll try it," Katara promised, trying very hard not to grin—and ultimately failing, but who could blame her?

Katara was still attending healing lessons with Yugoda, even after Master Pakku accepted her as one of his students. In Yugoda's hut, she found herself the object of awe, somewhat-scandalized awe, and gapes of shock and somewhat grudging admiration whenever she showed up for lessons. It wasn't that Katara hadn't _wanted_ to learn healing; that wasn't why she'd wanted to learn waterbending combat at all. But why shouldn't women be allowed to learn _both_, especially if they knew it would be useful and a valuable skill to possess? Why should women be forced into this tiny little box, and never allowed to escape? If Katara wanted to learn combat, she would learn combat, and there wasn't anything that was going to stop her. If she wanted to learn healing, the same could be said there.

It had just so happened that, earlier today, as Katara was attending a healing lesson with Yugoda, that an elderly woman stopped by the healing hut. When she skirted past the students and went straight to Yugoda, Katara looked up and frowned. The woman kind of looked like her Gran-Gran. She was younger than Kanna, her face less lined and her hair a little darker, but other than that she really did resemble Katara's grandmother.

Then, Yugoda had called Katara up to the front of the room to come speak to the woman. She had introduced her as Nissi. Nissi, as it turned out, was Kanna's much-younger sister.

"Don't mind Mom, Katara!" Hai called from the doorway, where he and Sokka were eagerly comparing different cutting edges and blade shapes between North and South Pole weapons. "She's always jumping from one topic to the next to the next and, well…" He waved a hand in the air and grinned knowingly.

Nissi shot a very particular look at him. "Well of course, Hai. Where do you think you got it from?"

Hai shrugged good-humoredly. He was Nissi's third and youngest child, just twenty-two years old, and had proudly introduced himself as the only earthbender in the Northern Water Tribe; Katara guessed that he was the reason for all of the earthenware jars and pots in Nissi's house, so that he'd have something to bend with. Apparently Nissi had married later on in life ("My parents thought that Kanna's running away might have had something to do with the engagement; they didn't want to risk the same thing happening to me") than was usual for a Water Tribe woman, to a trader from the Earth Kingdom. Hai was the only one of Nissi's children to inherit earthbending, rather than waterbending. Hai and Sokka had taken to each other right away; rather worryingly, Hai seemed to think Sokka was funny.

Nissi also had two older children, Nalak and Jina. Neither of them were here right now, but Jina had left her daughter Yuna with Nissi to look after while she worked. Katara hoped she would be able to meet them soon, and the sooner, the better.

Suddenly, Katara felt a small hand tugging on her trousers. She looked down to see her eight-year-old cousin Yuna staring up at her with wide, hopeful blue eyes. "Katara?" she asked in her whispery little voice. "Are you really learning how to _fight_ with waterbending?"

Katara smiled encouragingly. "That's right."

Yuna's eyes, if possible, grew even wider. "Well, umm…" She looked down, and shuffled her feet against the floor. "…I was wondering if you could… well, teach me how to do that too?"

Katara's smile widened into a grin. "Sure!"

The ensuing streams of "Thank you!" were the most (and the loudest) words Katara had heard Yuna speak since meeting her.

Katara was going to _enjoy_ having a larger family now.


End file.
